“Well, I've been in the city for 30 years and I've never once regretted being a nasty, greedy, cold-hearted, avaricious money-grubber... er, Conservative!” - Monty Python's Flying Circus, Season 2, Episode 11, How Not To Be Seen

Thursday, July 31, 2008

I am angry that some of these right wing commentators aren't being forced to answer for the Adkisson situation. But the Blog-O-Sphere has been talking about it somewhat, so that's good. Here's a great and very accurate post from the Opinion Mill.

When Susan Smith drowned her little boys in South Carolina, when the halls of Columbine High School ran red with blood and when a vicious freak shot down students on the Virginia Tech campus, the smoke barely had time to clear before Newt Gingrich waddled in front of the nearest television camera to announce that liberalism was the root cause of each horror.

And, of course, when Al Qaeda fanatics murdered thousands on 9/11, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell wasted no time in blaming the mass murder on feminists and secularists. Last year, career winger Dinesh D’Souza excreted a whole book devoted to the proposition that the mere presence of Michael Moore and Hillary Clinton so inflamed Muslim sensibilities that ”the cultural left” had to accept responsibility for the destruction of the World Trade Center. In each case, a widely known spokesman for the conservative movement let it be known that mere words spoken by liberals had the magic power to create horror and catastrophe.

So to Newt, Dinesh, Pat, Jerry (wherever he may be roasting right now), Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and every other cynical crap-spewing wingnut out there, I say: let me introduce you all to Jim D. Adkisson, your new BFF. He’s the out-of-work Tennessee truck driver who walked into a Unitarian Universalist church where parents were watching their children perform the musical Annie and started blasting away with a shotgun.

This is exactly what has me so worked up. Conservatives have been happily blaming liberals for everything under the sun for years. But when this sort of things happens, where a guy specifically credits conservative commentators for inspiring his madness, and everybody looks the other way.

For the record, Adkisson was clearly mentally unhinged, and had his madness not been inspired by Rush and Hannity, it would have been inspired by something. But Conservatism should still have to answer for their rhetoric of hate.

Of course I want to present both sides of this issue - and in the interest of that, here's sections from a post at Freedom Eden.

The Left is loving this.

Nutjob Jim Adkisson goes into a church and opens fire, killing two people and injuring seven others.

The nutjob is anti-liberal and anti-gay -- the perfect storm for those on the Left wishing to bash conservatives.

Yep - we Liberals are so hateful we applaud the killing of fellow liberals because it allows us to further our political ends. For the record, the conservative who wrote this later clarified that he doesn't think we are happy about the shooting.

Furthermore, I am NOT suggesting that Leftists take joy in the deaths and injuries of these innocents. Understand? I am NOT saying that Leftists love that Adkisson went on a shooting spree.

You are the one projecting that spin on my statement. It comes from you.

When I write "The Left is loving this," I am referring to the way Leftists, like you, are exploiting this horrific incident in Knoxville to further their anti-conservative agenda.

The Left is "loving" the fact that murderer Adkisson had books written by the "squawkers." You can't deny that.

I can deny it. I'm not happy about this development. I doubt many liberals are. Rather, after years of conservatives sowing hatred and anger, America is now going to reap the results of that. Adkisson may end up being an aberration (and that is my hope) or he may end up being a harbinger. We'll have to see.

One point - "Further Excerpts from: My Secret Garden" is just an instrumental version of the song. Nothing wrong with it, and in context it sounds pretty good. By itself the pretension shines through more clearly.

I'll Be Your Chauffeur is a great song by a member of Love and Rockets, and 7 Years is sung by Richard Butler, better known as the lead singer from the Psychedelic Furs.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Thus far I haven't found very much mainstream Conservative reaction to the Adkisson murders. But Alternet does have a story on how Free Republic has reacted to them. About what you would expect and throughly depressing.

For those who don't know, Jim D. Adkisson went into a Unitarian Church Sunday Morning with a firearm. He is accused of killing two people and wounding five. According to a note he wrote in his truck "he hated the liberal movement." A depressing story all the way around.

Candace Chellew-Hodge, who worked for Sean Hannity a long time ago, has written him a letter about the situation. It's well worth reading.

The sad irony here, Sean, is that if Mr. Adkisson had gone to that Unitarian church and told them he was out of a job and his food stamps had just ended, they would have helped him. They would have fed them from their food pantry and used their network of friends to help find him a job. Not because they’re liberal socialists, but because they understand that it’s not “us” against “them.” Instead, what made this country great is that we pull together in times of crisis—we bear one another’s burdens and put aside our differences in order to be of service to one another. They would have reached out to Mr. Adkisson without asking him if he was Democrat or a Republican or a liberal or a conservative. Labels don’t matter when someone is in need—or they shouldn’t.

Yeah, pretty much true.

I have been looking for Conservative responses to this incident, but haven't seen very many as yet. I guess I can understand why they would keep mum.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

David Strom's latest article is entitled, promisingly enough, "Do Conservatives Hate Their Children?" As it turns out, he believes that Conservatives do not Hate their Children. I'm vaguely disappointed.

The article is about Global Warming - Liberals often say that we need to curb man-made global warming to help out our kids. And since Conservatives don't want to curb man-made global warming, well, what do they think of their kids. Strom makes two points, one valid, the other a tangent. He notes that Conservatoids do tend to have a lot of kids so they probably do actually love their children. Then he points out that Liberals want to destroy our economy and make this nation into a socialist dystopia. So they must not love their children or conservative children either.

Of course what he ducks is the Key Question, which is, is man-made global warming occurring. If you believe it is, well, than drastic action might well be necessary. If you believe that it is not happening, well, than these proposed drastic steps seem both unnecessary and threatening.

Strom (and others) don't just believe that Man Made Global Warming is a hoax - they believe it's a self evident hoax. Those who claim to believe in it know it's a hoax. So why are they lying? Well because those who claim to believe in it want to create a Socialist Dystopia where they sit at the top of the pile. Kind of nasty of us.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Appparently NATO is concerned about it's public image. So they've brought in a professional.

Less than a year before its 60th anniversary, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is determined to revamp its image, establishing a media operations center for Afghanistan and hiring an executive from Coca-Cola to manage the way the alliance is seen around the world.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

David Limbaugh's latest article basically takes Obama to task for acting like his policies have been validated. Apparently the person who really has been validated was President Bush; and Obama is just a dummy for pretending otherwise.

It seems in this life, anyway, there never will be accountability for those Democrats who opposed this operation every step of the way (following their initial fraudulent support) and continue to do so, no matter the state of the "facts on the ground."

Limbaugh should try to look on the bright side. He and others on the right will likewise not have to account for their support of war after war, nor will they have to defend their cheering of our national abandonment of civil liberties. They won't have to answer for torture or warrantless wiretaps. So see, Limbaugh, it's not all bad.

Monday, July 21, 2008

I generally don't hold with the theory that the 2004 election was stolen, nor do I think there is an effort afoot to steal the 2008 election. I am sure there innumerable bad actors who might do bad things like caging or clearing the voting rolls to eliminate people who might vote the wrong way, but I don't think there is a coordinated effort. That said, if there were a coordinated effort, today's article by Austin Hill would be beneficial to those planning such an effort.

The basic theme of it is that if Obama isn't elected, there will be riots and anger from Americans unwilling to accept the will of the American people.

While speaking with a friend who is a yacht broker in the affluent Santa Monica coastal region of Southern California, I asked “what do people in your circles have to say about the presidential election? Are they even talking about it? What do they say?”

“Yes, people are talking about it” my friend assured me. “It’s assumed that Obama will win. But if he doesn’t, there’s a fear that South-Central LA will erupt in riots, kind of like what happened after the trial of the cops that beat Rodney King in 1992.”

I’m not a conspiracy theorist or alarmist. But I do believe that current cultural and political conditions are such that a McCain “victory” in November could create, at the very least, some significant tension in our society, if not outright civil unrest. Much of my concern has to do with a rather skewed, subjective, and selfish view of the notion of “injustice” that Obama himself has propagated throughout his campaign.

Let's for a moment consider the amount of "street cred" a yacht broker has.

Yeah I'm not sure polling the wealthiest of the wealthy out in California was a good way to figure out what would happen in Watts if Obama loses, legitimately or illegitmately. The truth is that if Obama loses there will be a lot of people upset; but if he loses because of electoral fraud, well, there will be outrage. And Hill and his compatriots will do everything they can to shove it under the table.

Friday, July 18, 2008

John Hawkin's latest article is pretty lazy - basically he takes five flawed statements, attributes them to Liberals (though in at least a few cases conservatives say them too), and then proceeds to knock down his carefully propped up straw men. The third is, of course, this bit of bumper stickery.

Jesus, as Mike Huckabee famously said, "was too smart to ever run for public office," and he was not, in any way, shape, or form, a liberal -- or for that matter, a conservative.

If you're a liberal and happen to believe otherwise, I'm sure you'd be in for a rude awakening if you ever had an actual discussion with Jesus about, say gay marriage, premarital sex, abortion, Islam, or prayer in schools. In fact, if Jesus were to come back tomorrow, chances are they'd be calling him JesusHitler on Daily Kos by the end of the week. Not that we conservatives would escape chastisement either, but at least we're not so arrogant as to believe that our Lord and Savior would be filling in while Rush Limbaugh is on vacation.

To a certain extent I agree with Hawkins - in an actual encounter between Jesus and our modern political parties, neither party is likely to come off that well. That said, there are plenty of Conservative Christians who believe that you can't be a good Christian and a Liberal. Some of them even write at Townhall. I think you have to factor that into the Jesus was a Liberal sticker; it is liberals reclaiming their connection to Christ. A connection that many conservatives would deny. While I agree that it isn't the most well thought out argument (particularly since it seems to turn it around and imply that Conservatives aren't Christians), I can understand it.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Intermixed with all the bad news for Republicans, they have found one issue that works for them. Energy. Now of course they have the difficulty of explaining how Bush hasn't been able to do anything about it in 8 years of office, but McCain will have better luck. Usually they explain this by muttering about Democrats. Certainly talking about those dastardly Democrats who like Moose more than People is more fun than defending the Bush Record on Iraq.

The theme of Dick Morris's latest article is that Obama is an enormous flip-flopper, so why not flip flop on energy and support drilling everything. But in his list of flip-flops, and there have been some doozys lately, Morris does overstate his case a little. For example he presents this as a flip-flop.

Having based his entire campaign on withdrawal from Iraq, he now pledges to consult with the military first.

Silly. He always said he would plan the specifics of our withdrawal with the military; one of his repeated phrases is that we need to be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. I think Morris's assumption is that the military will tell him "You've got to stay in Iraq forever, sir." I'm not sure they will. And at any rate, I believe it's the Military's job to execute tactically the direction the President gives them. If Obama makes it an objective to withdraw military from Iraq in a sensible manner, I'm not sure what the Military can say to that.

At any rate the rest of it is on energy. I do think that if the Republicans can convince the American people that the high gas prices are entirely the Democrats doing, well, it will be good for them. That might be a hard sell, particularly if Obama insists on bringing up Iraq.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

With all due respect to Secretary Rice, the Founders of American Democracy would argue that democracy could not be sustained without Christian virtue at its foundation. Such a necessity makes the implementation of democracy in Islamic states not merely “messy” but arguably impossible without a fundamental change in their religious worldview.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Oh wait. He does. And Obama presented it in the pages of the New York Times, underlining the key differences between himself and Mr. McCain.

As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.

In carrying out this strategy, we would inevitably need to make tactical adjustments. As I have often said, I would consult with commanders on the ground and the Iraqi government to ensure that our troops were redeployed safely, and our interests protected. We would move them from secure areas first and volatile areas later. We would pursue a diplomatic offensive with every nation in the region on behalf of Iraq’s stability, and commit $2 billion to a new international effort to support Iraq’s refugees.

Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven. Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been.

Good stuff. Still I don't expect the right wing to stop complaining that Obama doesn't have a plan on Iraq.

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

If you recall, earlier in the week I responded to an article by Phil Harris about a teacher in Ohio who was fired because he had a Bible on his desk. At the time I found that suspicious, and intended to follow up on it, but didn't until now.

Turns out there was a bit more to that story that originally noted, according to an article at the Washington Post. In addition to keeping a bible on his desk, John Freshwater taught creationism in his science class room and burnt crosses in his student's arms.

Officials knew that Freshwater used a science tool to burn images of a cross on students' arms in December, according to findings by outside investigators.

"I think things were just overlooked and overlooked and overlooked and then it just came to a head," said Kelly Montgomery, whose son was a student in Freshwater's class a few years ago. "It's been terrible for the whole community."

Freshwater told investigators he simply was trying to demonstrate the device on three to eight students and described the images an "X" not a cross. But pictures show the images depict a cross, the report said.

Yeah not sure about that one.

At any rate, as normal, it looks like there is more to the story than initially appeared.

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

In the post below about Jesse Helms and Rush Limbaugh, I had intended to contrast the lofty sentiments of the founders with meanest sentiments of Helms. I determined not to, though, because it was a lot like contrasting the Founders at their best with Helms at his worst. That said, while looking up quotes I did come across a doozy from the Founding Father of the moment, John Adams.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

Ironic that the Democratic Congress seems determined to trust President Bush with the power to endanger the public liberty. Depressing.

Watching the John Adams miniseries right now, and finding it very entertaining and inspiring. I heartily endorse it, as it's giving me a greater reverence for the founding principals of this nation and the men who expounded those principles.

That said, I'm not sure about Rush's expounding on the founding fathers to take a swipe at John Kerry.

How did we, the United States of America, get from the likes of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington -- I'll throw Jesse Helms in there -- to the likes of John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, the haughty John Kerry, how in the world do we get from Jefferson, Lincoln, Washington, Adams, Helms, Reagan, to John Kerry, to Chuck Schumer, to Dick Durbin?

Hmmmm. Jesse Helms, eh? A scene from his life might illustrate his worth.

"When Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois became the first African-American woman to sit in the Senate, Helms followed Moseley-Braun into an elevator, announcing to Utah Senator Orrin Hatch: "Watch me make her cry. I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing 'Dixie' until she cries."

Then, emphasizing the lines about how "good" things were before the Civil War ended slavery, Helms sang "Dixie.""

Nice. I'm not sure that sort of behavior qualifies one to be a founding father in my book. For more quotes and a review of what the Conservative press is saying about Jesse Helms, check out this post at Obsidian Wings.

Monday, July 07, 2008

This is a continuation of a discussion in the comments section down the page, in which I intimated that Obama's judgment was better than McCains. In it Kullervo (who may or may not be related to Random Goblin) suggested that my appraisal of McCain's and Obama's Judgment implied that I was using Justice to mean "agrees with me."

I think judgment has a whole lot more to do with process, and what the decision-making is based on.

It is a tricky point to defend, I have to admit. Because the results of McCain's and Obama's Judgement over the years are in dispute. And Kullervo's right - the Process does matter. Certainly I'd be less secure in my support of Obama if he regularly stated "I am taking this position because the voices in my head told me too."

That said, I'm not sure you can decouple process from results. McCain has taken stances over the last few years that I think are terrible errors, both morally and practically. He has also done some things I agree with. I'm not sure how you have a good judgment process that leads you to support the President having the authority to spy on who he likes without authorization. I'm not sure you have a good judgment process that leads you to support a stance of extreme belligerence with Iran, up to and including "Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran."

Now Obama has made some errors in the past as well, including his long association with the Reverend Wright and his support for the recent Telecom Amnesty bill.

So the secret is to look at their thought processes and determine, with the challenges facing us in 2009, which thought processes, which judgment is more likely to produce a correct response. Senator McCain has disagreed with President Bush on a few notable points (he thought we should have committed more troops to Iraq, he has, on some occasions, opposed torture and favored closing down Guantenemo), but in large part he's supported President Bush in his pursuit of the War on Terror.

So why should one assume that McCains judgment, which has led him to support such a destructive array of policies from 2001 to 2008, will begin advising him to take positive steps after 2009?

To answer that question, one would have to examine the rationales McCain (and Obama) have taken for their positions over the years, and see if those rationales are likely to lead to different actions in the future (as conditions change).

Like the title of Phil Harris's latest article over at Townhall. To wit; "The Liberal's Agenda - Antichrist or just anti-Christ?" Yep either we liberals are in league with Satan or we are just in league with Satan (but don't know it). The core issue is a teacher in Ohio who kept a Bible on his desk and was required to remove it. He fought for his right to hold a bible on his desk, while Larry Elder, conservative commentator, said that he should just put the Bible in his desk drawer.. I don't know, but I'm guessing there is more to this story than a guy with a Bible on his desk. I'll look into it.

But first back to Phil Harris. After relaying this sad state of affairs and saying that this is all the movement of a movement to ban Christianity (an anti-Christ movement, in his words), he moves on to speculation on the Antichrist.

The Internet is abuzz with wild speculation about who the Antichrist is. Some believe the Antichrist may be Barak Obama. Others speculate it is John McCain, and I have even read headlines that attribute the beastly title to Larry Elder. Whether you believe in a literal Antichrist that signals the end of days or not, there is without question an ongoing anti-Christ movement.

From my perspective, there is a figurehead of the dark side; a man who will, at every opportunity, grant historic advances to the culling of humanity through unfettered abortion. Given his extreme liberalism, I could see him declaring a Bible-Free Zone (as in free from Bibles) around public schools.

Can you tell that I have grown weary of Barak Obama and his plagiarized, Martin Luther King speech delivery style?

Yeah, he doesn't go as far as to say that Obama is the Antichrist, but comes pretty close, it strikes me. And the accusation does seem a bit outside the bounds of normal rational discourse, no matter how you try to pretend otherwise.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

More on the Wesley Clark fandango. Gail Collin's at the New York Times tries to do a recap of the events, discussing lessons learned from it. She ends with this paragraph.

About those lessons: McCain’s campaign has announced a staff reorganization, so perhaps he realizes that he needs better outraged-response material. Wesley Clark has learned that he’s not going to be vice president. And maybe both camps now understand that this is not the year for debates about management experience. The next president isn’t going to have much. It’s O.K. If we cared about management, we’d have stuck with Mitt Romney.

I'm not sure about that last sentence; who is the we Gail Collins is referring to. Cause I could care about management all day long, and I still wouldn't support Mitt Romney.

I think she's right though; management experience isn't deep in either man. But judgment seems like a very fruitful area of discussion. If you feel like the Bush Years, particularly in regards to the War in Iraq and the erosion of Civil Liberties, have been good for America, well you should vote for the man who's judgment led him to agree with most of those decisions, John McCain. On the other hand, if you think those actions were mistakes, well, we have a candidate for you as well.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

In 2004 we had one candidate who had served valiantly in Vietnam, and another candidate who hadn't and who had to be eager to nullify this advantage. In 2008 we have one candidate who served valiantly in Vietnam and another candidate who hadn't and who has to be eager to nullify this advantage.

In 2004 we had a group come out and tell a lot of phony baloney stories about John Kerry, saying that he wasn't really a war hero. They defamed his character and attacked him viciously. This was all fair play.

In 2008, General Wesley Clark has suggested that, despite his service, Senator John McCain may not be the ideal commander in chief. He made some comments on Face the Nation in regards to John McCain's readiness to serve (to watch the video, via Talking Points Memo, click here). People went crazy about this bizarre attack on the qualifications of a veteran, so he released a press release clarifying his position.

As I have said before I honor John McCain's service as a prisoner of war and a Vietnam Veteran. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. I would never dishonor the service of someone who chose to wear the uniform for our nation.

John McCain is running his campaign on his experience and how his experience would benefit him and our nation as President. That experience shows courage and commitment to our country - but it doesn't include executive experience wrestling with national policy or go-to-war decisions. And in this area his judgment has been flawed - he not only supported going into a war we didn't have to fight in Iraq, but has time and again undervalued other, non-military elements of national power that must be used effectively to protect America. But as an American and former military officer I will not back down if I believe someone doesn't have sound judgment when it comes to our nation's most critical issues.

This is of course an unprecedented attack on the patriotism of a legitimate war hero. Worthy of discussion for several days. Heck it got so bad, that McCain had to bring in Bud Day, formerly affiliated with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, to defend himself.

Of course some niggling nebbishs have pointed out that the attacks of Wesley Clark are far from as personal and nasty as the attacks launched by the Swift Boat Vets. I mean they called into question his service and his honor, saying he hadn't earned his medals and that he was kind of a coward and braggart. They attacked his service directly.

Well the right has an answer to those nebbishs; the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were telling the Truth. They have truth right in their name. Now granted, any reasonable person who looked at the factual claims of the Swift Boat Vets and compared them to the counter evidence would come to the conclusion that the Swift Boat Vets were full of crap. But you aren't one of the reasonable people are you? Of course not.

I suspect this will be a short term issue. I think it's great that Clark is standing up to the attacks, and I agree with him.

Look McCain's service in the military is a mark of courage. It's a mark of character. I can't imagine the torture that McCain went through and chose to stay with to support his fellow troops. It shows character. If we were electing somebody to go to show courage in a prisoner of war camp, I'd elect McCain over Obama in a heart beat.

But you have to look at the full picture. Yes McCain is heroic, yes he loves his country, yes he has great character. But Obama, while not having the same opportunity to prove his physical courage, has shown that he loves his country and that he has great character. And when comparing Obama's judgment to McCain's, well, Obama comes up as a winner, in my opinion.

Michael Medved at a post on his blog is singing the praises of a new book.

The campaign of 2008 has already witnessed the dramatic rise of the Religious Left, with Barack Obama and other liberals claiming scriptural authority for their big government versions of compassion. In this context, “How Would God Vote?”, the explosive new book by David Klinghoffer, provides an invaluable response. The subtitle says “Why the Bible Commands You to be a Conservative” and the book digs deep into scriptural text to emphasize that the Almighty demands individual commitment, rather than asking human beings to satisfy their obligations to their nieghbors through impersonal government policy.

God Commands you to be a Conservative. Lovely.

Still this doesn't bug me as much as it might because you can practically smell the desperation here. They are basically commanding Christians to be conservative. And that kind of desperation? Well it smells good.

Larry Arnn has an article in praise of the Declaration of Independence over at Townhall. For the most part it tries to be non-partisan but it can't help lamenting the modern liberal culture that doesn't love our founding documents.

Increasingly our politics revolve around the fashions of other nations or of that vast entity, commanding and yet impotent—“the world,” or better, “the rest of the world.” Seldom now do our politicians hearken to the great documents of our republic, the Declaration and the Constitution, to guide their actions or restrain their ambitions. We are reaching, perhaps, the place where America does not matter. Many think this a happy place.

I think this is a measure of how successful the ideas contained in the Declaration of Independence have been. The ideas contained there in are honored in nations far beyond our own.

And isn't that the point? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." All men. Not just Americans.

He also fails to note, not surprisingly, how we Americans have turned our back on some of these principals in our war on Terror. In the recent furor over the prisoners at Guantenemo, the Conservatives were fighting for the right to hold people indefinitely, with no recourse and no review. That doesn't sound like we are respecting the rights of all men, does it?

The sad truth is that there may be nations beyond our borders that respect our founding documents more than we do. That's not America-Hating. That's a plea for us to do better.